Now dig deep and cut straight back up your arm.
She felt a little sting as she slashed open the veins in her wrist. Curlicues of red drifted up from her wrist like the smoke coming out of her incense holder. There was remarkably little pain.
Now for the other wrist.
She switched her knife to the other hand and opened up the veins in the other wrist. The blood diffused and mixed with the water, turning it pink.
She drifted off in bliss.
Chapter Eighteen
Day Zero
“Janice!” It was Jize calling out to her. She turned toward his voice, and he was pointing frantically with his gun.
“Yes?!”
“Check out the crashed patrol car! Emily thinks there’s a body in there!”
What Jize said bewildered Janice, but he seemed so insistent. She picked up a bloody gun and ventured over to the crashed sheriff’s car.
As soon as the body came into view, she started running. He was dressed in a beige police uniform. Is he moving? Is he a zombie?
Yes, he was moving a little, but she kept her distance. She noticed the deflated airbags.
“Are you a zombie?” she called out.
He spoke, but she could barely make it out. “A what?”
A coherent answer. No zombie. He was a survivor!
She approached him. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I crashed,” he said weakly. “Then I heard y’all talking.” He winced.
“Are you in pain?”
He winced his eyes. “Yes, my neck and my head.”
“What’s your name?” She walked up close to him.
“Marty.”
“Okay, Marty, what year is it?”
“Twenty twenty-five.”
“Who’s the president?”
“Ah.” He winced again. “I can’t . . . I don’t know . . . Amy . . . Scar-something-or-other . . .” He opened his eyes. “Scarsdale. Amy Scarsdale. Ooh, where am I?”
“You’re in a patrol car. You crashed. You’re in Beaver Park, in the intersection near the gondola, the police station, and the supermarket.”
Slouched a bit, he tried to sit up. He grunted, clearly in pain.
“Hold still. I believe you have a concussion.” She noticed the sheriff’s badge. “Are you the sheriff?”
“Yes.”
“You rest here for a little while.”
Vin spoke from behind her. “It’s too dangerous to stay out here for too long. We have no idea who or what may be lurking about.”
Janice turned around to look at him, several guns stuffed under the top of his jeans beneath his heavy-metal concert t-shirt. Alexander, Jize, and Emily were with him. “Okay, but Alexander and I have to support him as we get him to the market.”
“Okay. I see everybody has a gun.”
“I did not check for ammunition,” Jize said. “I can only use one hand while I hold on to Emily.”
Vin scowled. “I retrieved plenty of ammunition. Let’s get moving.” He flicked his head in the car’s direction. “And I’ll take his shotgun and any shells he has.”
Alexander agreed to guard the group with the sheriff’s shotgun while Vin left to search for a radio at the electronics store nearby. He volunteered his jacket as a pillow for the sheriff, and he thought it a shame to get his jacket bloody—the sheriff was covered in blood from head to toe.
Janice reported that the sheriff would probably be all right. Without a hospital, it was uncertain, but his ability to tell his full story was a good sign. Alexander got sick to his stomach as the sheriff recounted how he’d blown his family’s brains to bits, and Alexander thought about his own family, his own parents, his own brother. Were they dead? Were they zombies? Were they alive and in trouble?
He was angry at himself for ever leaving them. A vacation away from his family? How selfish was that?
But would he have survived at home? He doubted it. There, most likely he wouldn’t have been so lucky.
He recalled Amber’s premature birth, how they didn’t know if she would survive her first night.
What would a toddler zombie be like, anyway?
Alexander turned away as the sheriff described his accident. He hoped no one saw him sobbing, as he hoped his own family escaped becoming zombies.
A memory came flooding back—his mother holding him as he watched on TV the first World Trade Center tower collapse into dust in the wee hours of the morning. He wished his parents had just let him sleep.
He also wished they escaped like he did, found a supermarket in Pleasanton like he did. They probably got separated from each other, his father stranded near his work, his mother at home.
Vin opened the double doors, climbing over the tables in front of the door, carrying a portable radio. Their eyes met. Vin saw him crying. Vin frowned and nodded and didn’t say a thing. Instead, he took the radio and placed it on the table, extended the antenna and turned the dial. He tried AM and FM. All static, or, more disconcerting, dead air.
Janice then joined Vin back out to the sporting-goods store to get clothing after collecting everyone’s sizes.
When they got back, Alexander was aghast. Janice carried two big shopping bags, one with underwear and sweatshirts and sweatpants in ugly colors, except for a pair of black ones. Whatever the color, Alexander knew he would hate how he looked in them, but his khakis and collared shirt were filthy. The other bag contained ski jackets.
Janice and Vin then went back for backpacks, sleeping bags, flashlights, and hiking shoes. They also got a multi-tool for each of them. The ski jackets, at least, were somewhat fashionable, with removable fleece lining.
Emily liked Ms. Fernley. She reminded her of her daycare teacher, Mrs. Dunthorne. Ms. Fernley was so nice to her. Unlike Charming. Emily didn’t understand why her Prince Charming was not being so nice.
But now Ms. Fernley was being not-so-nice. She was asking Emily to take off her dress.
The two of them were in the bathroom alone, and Emily understood that she would not get help from anyone.
No, Ms. Fernley may be like her teacher, but she wasn’t her teacher. She certainly wasn’t her mother. Emily didn’t have
